Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and Spenser's "Faerie Queene" are allegories.

Both simile and metaphor are easily suggested. Their number is limited only by the number of objects in the universe that are more or less alike. They should not be used for ornament merely, and should grow naturally out of the subject. Neither figure should be carried too far, and great care should be taken not to confuse differ-. ent similes or metaphors in the same sentence. Mixture of metaphor is a serious fault, as may be seen from the following examples :

We must keep the ball rolling until it becomes a thorn in the side of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat, I see him floating in the air; but mark me, sir, I will nip him in the bud.

134. Personification. Personification consists in giving life and personality to inanimate objects. Some little emotion is needed in the writing to warrant the use of this figure. Examples:

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.

MILTON L'Allegro.

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

GRAY: The Elegy.

135. Synecdoche and Metonymy. -Synecdoche and metonymy may be regarded as figures of relationship.

They are nearly alike. Synecdoche consists in using a specific for a general term, an individual for a species, a part for a whole, or vice versa. Examples:

Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest.

Consider the lilies how they grow; they toil not, they spin not; yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Metonymy, like synecdoche, consists in the use of one thing for something else; the relationship, however, is not that of a part to a whole, but of cause to effect, of instrument to agent, of material to the thing made, or some other relation such that the one will readily suggest the other. We speak of "the bench" for the judges on the bench; "the pulpit " for the clergymen in the pulpit. An example of metonymy is:

Johere

Youth and old age are jealous of each other.

136. Antithesis. - Antithesis is a figure of contrast, that is, the placing over against each other of things which differ strikingly in one or more particulars. These particulars are made prominent as being especially under consideration.

The Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectator.

137. The Historical Present. Sometimes, in order to make the mental picture more real and living, a writer employs the present tense in narrating something

that occurred in the past. This is done only in the more stirring part of a story, and it requires great skill to change from the use of the past tense to the use of the present in the same action without making the change unpleasantly apparent. The employment of the historical present where the narrative is too tame to demand it, is particularly to be avoided, and there is rarely any material gain from its use.

138. The Exclamation and Rhetorical Question.Occasionally a statement can be made more effective by putting it in the form of an exclamation or question. Either may indicate a greater intensity of emotion than is implied in a simple affirmation, but neither should be used to create an unreal and manufactured emotion. A question may very effectively take the place of an assertion when the reader's answer to the question must ordinarily be equivalent to the assertion itself.

139. Other Figures. Other figures frequently used are apostrophe, in which the writer addresses inanimate things as living beings, the absent as present, etc., "Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!" hyperbole, in which the writer exaggerates to produce intensity of feeling, "The many rend the sky with loud applause "; irony, in which something in the tone or manner indicates that the speaker or writer means the reverse of what he says. Marc Antony's oration in "Julius

Caesar" is an excellent example of irony.

140. The Effect of Figures of Speech. Emphasis is gained by the employment of figures. It is possible to

construct them mechanically, although such attempts often betray themselves. Aside from this, it is an instinctive assumption in the mind of the reader that figurative language has its origin in heightened feeling in the writer. This, in connection with its suggestive appeal to imagination, gives figurative language, when skillfully employed, great power to kindle the emotions. Ordinarily in our reading we give ourselves to the guidance of our author and accept his point of view, unless it crosses the current of our own thoughts too sharply, or is inartistically presented. We respond, then, to his emotions, and accept them when they are. presented in the way of suggestion rather than baldly in definite statement; and so the suggestion of emotion. in figures contributes directly to emphasis. Taste is necessary to use them fittingly, since, if they are employed mechanically, they may give emphasis to that which is prosaic and unimportant.

EXERCISES.

1. What do you understand by figurative language? Define a 66 Figure of Speech." Mention the common figures of speech. Distinguish between a simile and a metaphor, between synecdoche and metonymy. What is an allegory? What is antithesis? Explain the figures of speech in the following selections:

1. A great many children get on the wrong track because the switch is misplaced.

2. Presence of mind is greatly promoted by absence of body.

3. Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

4. Thou hast taught me, Silent River,

Many a lesson, deep and long.

5. She bestowed her hand and her heart on a worthy man.

6. Her hair drooped round her pallid cheek

7.

Like sea-weed on a clam.

And the cares that infest the day

Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,

And as silently steal away.

8. How sweet it was to draw near my own home after living homeless in the world so long!

9. Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again!

10. And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood.

II. The little church at Jonesville is once more tossed upon the waves, a sheep without a shepherd.

12. It will bring his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.

13. Pain and pleasure were at his elbow, telling him what to do and what to avoid.

14. The pen is mightier than the sword.

15. And, O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves!

16. Wellington did not at Waterloo expose his bosom to the steel.

17. His flashes of merriment were wont to set the table in a roar.

18. Miles of hulls were rotting in the harbor of Portsmouth.

19. Rivers of water run down my eyes because they keep not thy law.

2. Justify the use of the exclamation and question in the following, or criticise as you see fit.

And look what perennial fibre of truth was in that. To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not a God made visible, if we will open our minds and eyes?